Meet Matias Pellegrini, the Major League Soccer’s sacrificial lamb of the year. Well, at least for April.

Inter Miami CF announced Friday that it has exercised its offseason buyout on Pellegrini’s MLS contract ahead of today’s roster compliance deadline.

That gave the team three Designated Players for this season – Gonzalo Higuaín, Blaise Matuidi and Rodolfo Pizarro.

MLS has been conducting an investigation into whether Miami’s signing of Matuidi complied with the league roster and budget rules during 2020.

The league said Friday it had concluded that Inter Miami was not in compliance with those rules during 2020.

In 2020, Matuidi was categorized as a Targeted Allocation Money player. Matuidi’s compensation was above the compensation limit for a TAM player and he should have been classified as a DP. As a result, Inter Miami violated the DP limit as the team had three DP in addition to Matuidi last year.

The league is finalizing the investigation and will be announcing the results of that investigation, including sanctions, in the near future.

Pellegrini has joined Fort Lauderdale CF, the club’s USL League One side, on loan and will not be eligible to compete on the team’s 2021 MLS roster.

Front Row Soccer editor Michael Lewis has covered 13 World Cups (eight men, five women), seven Olympics and 25 MLS Cups. He has written about New York City FC, New York Cosmos, the New York Red Bulls and both U.S. national teams for Newsday and has penned a soccer history column for the Guardian.com. Lewis, who has been honored by the Press Club of Long Island and National Soccer Coaches Association of America, is the former editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He has written seven books about the beautiful game and has published ALIVE AND KICKING The incredible but true story of the Rochester Lancers. It is available at Amazon.com.